the World Health Organization declared today that covid-19 is no longer a global Health Emergency a designation it's held for three years the who director General says he has great hope in making this announcement but it does not mean kovid no longer poses a threat to the world the announcement comes less than a week before the National Public Health Emergency is set to end here in the U.S joining me now to explain what all this means is Montclair State University Public Health professor and epidemiologist Stephanie Silvera Stephanie great to talk to you as always help put into perspective what this announcement this declaration from the World Health Organization means and what it doesn't mean I think they they think that this means most is that we are no longer in an acute phase of a pandemic right so if you're looking at the really the most important markers which are deaths and hospitalizations those are down significantly globally and particularly in the United States where vaccinations are widely available what it does not mean is that covet is over covid still happens in February the United States had just about 9 000 covid deaths um so people are still dying globally every three minutes there's a death from covid so we need to still keep in mind that this is an infectious disease variants will continue to develop and we need to be aware of that and address it but the acute phase where it's having a significant impact on our Health Care Systems has passed so would you say then that by ending the global Health Emergency we are essentially entering an endemic globally really where we're looking at and I think one of the important things to remember about the term endemic is it simply means there's an expected number of cases not that the number of cases is low and what we've seen with each successive wave of covid is that the Baseline right the expected number of cases has risen each time so there's still a significant amount of illness and death that is circulating due to covid it's just that we have now reached a point where we can manage that better with the resources we have available what can you tell us about the risks that exist here in New Jersey in the present day the present moment so right now the number of cases is down significantly though we also know fewer people are testing and more of those tests are done outside of the clinical system meaning they're not getting counted the best measure that we have of the impact covet is having is hospitalizations and deaths and those are down quite dramatically over the past several months and certainly when we look at this year compared to last year so overall we are in a much better place vaccination rates are typically high and I think that we are in a position to maintain an awareness of covid without having it really have sort of this grip on our day-to-day living the way it has for the past three years and we're seeing next Thursday the U.S will end its Public Health Emergency do you expect to see any kind of shift or any change immediately after that I think a lot of the shift is looking at what are the long-term impacts of covid how is this going to impact the bodies of children who've had covid not just once but perhaps multiple times so I think the way we're looking at a little bit again ferment and infectious to a potentially chronic illness is going to start happening as well Stephanie Silvera you always break it down and make it simple for us to understand thank you thank you have a good day support for the medical report is provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association